So there I was sitting in my office trying to get caught up on some paperwork when one of our maintenance workers/custodians came in to do some work. He's a pleasant guy who likes to talk but I had a lot of work to do so I hesitated to say anything. But then again, I didn't want to seem rude so I said "Hi Mike, how're you doing?"
"Oh pretty good," he said. "How about you?"
"Busy," and I left it at that.
"Did you have a good weekend?" he asked.
"Mmhm," I said without looking up trying to indicate that I had things to do.
Undeterred, Mike pressed on. "I went to the movies this weekend. Saw 2016: Obama's America."
He had my attention.
"Have you seen it?" he asked.
"Nope," I said putting down my pen.
"Have you heard of it?"
"Yep."
"It was a pretty good movie," he began.
"It's all BS," I interrupted.
"Well... it goes through quite a bit of his life story, you know. About how he grew up and everything..."
"It's not true."
"... with all that anti-Americanism and stuff..."
"It's just conspiracy theory."
"...and living overseas..."
"Mike," I interrupted. "It's all been done before. It was false then and it's false now."
"It was pretty convincing."
"I'm sure it was, but let me ask you this," I said as I leaned forward in my chair and rested my elbows on my desk. "If any of this were true, why didn't McCain bring any of it up back in 2008?"
Blank look.
"And why hasn't Mitt Romney, with all his millions of dollars and a full staff at his disposal, not brought any of this up during the campaign? I would think that if any of this were true that one of the two of them would have used it to their advantage. Wouldn't you?"
"Uhh... probably."
"So the way I see it, there's only three possibilities here: 1.) None of it is true, 2.) It's all true but the guys with the millions of dollars and teams of political advisors aren't smart enough to figure out what Joe Sixpack is able to uncover on the Internet while sitting on his couch, or 3.) They're all in on the scam with Obama."
Long silence.
"Yeah... You're probably right," he said. "I'll let you get back to work."
"Thanks, Mike. Have a good day."
He left and I went back to work.
Smiling.